Violet
by Sifl-senpai
Summary: "It's my favorite," Shigeo prompted, as if that meant something. "Oh. Okay. Thank you," Katsuya tried. (Serizawa Katsuya is a shrinking violet if there ever was one. But he'll flourish, surely, with enough care.)


The train was packed full of people like fish in a grocery store- sliced, cleaned, and shoved between seran wrap and white styrofoam, complete with wide eyes and blank, noncommittal expressions. Some of them smelled.

Katsuya clung to the fabric strap hanging from the ceiling and held his head above the throngs of people pressed against him, gulping down heavy air. He looked up. The metal roof above him was white, clean, and curved like the underside of an umbrella, and the spray of rain peeling off the windows as the train sped onwards added to the effect. Katsuya took another deep breath, this one steadier than the last, and chanced a glance to his left. A row of high school girls in burgundy jackets took up the seats along the sides, all with their noses buried in one another's magazines or their own phones, except for one where a young woman dressed in workout clothing and a headband sat holding her purse. It was a warm, deep brown, and had tiny cats dotting the surface like pieces of tofu floating in miso soup. Katsuya counted them under his breath, lined them up in constellations in his mind.

When the train came to a stop, the woman stood. Katsuya made the mistake of glancing up at her face as she squeezed by him. She smiled apologetically.

He looked away, and forced his breathing to come in through his nose and out through his mouth while he clung to the hand strap like a lifeline. Someone bumped his side, and he stumbled forward into someone else.

"I," Katsuya sputtered, "I'm s-sorry!"

He received a mumbled apology in turn, and a radius of personal space as the people on the train poured out of the doors. He wobbled within the vacuum, and found his bearings as he took a seat where the high school girls had clustered together a moment earlier.

Then, a new flood of people filed in, this one mercifully smaller than the exodus preceding it. A fine mist of water glistened on the shoulders of their coats and sparkled in their hair. Their umbrellas hung, closed and dripping, at their sides. Katsuya's empty hands twitched.

The doors slid shut and the train continued onwards.

The car ran smoothly from the tunnel, and clattered as it emerged outside and over a bridge. Katsuya jumped with it, and got an eyeful of the glowing yellow characters denoting the train's next destination. His mouth flopped open and shut as he whispered each syllable over and over again, until the hiragana snapped to completed kanji in his mind.

Outside, mist shrouded the water, and Katsuya sank in his seat until he submerged himself beneath the top of the grey cloud smearing out the light searching for the window.

"I missed," he muttered. "I missed it." His body quaked as if from cold, like he was stuck in the rain outside and not cocooned in a speeding train. "I missed it. I missed my stop…" He covered his nose and lips with his hand, like it could filter out panic, and his eyes darted around the train.

A man with slicked back hair covered his mouth as he yawned, or perhaps obscured a cackle at Katsuya's expense. From the seats on the other side of the train, an elderly man stared at him over the top of his newspaper. And to Katsuya's right, a child standing tall in a yellow raincoat leered, purple umbrella by her side and secret laughter glinting in her eyes. She tugged at her mother's skirt to make sure that she, too, knew which man had failed to get off the train when he was supposed to.

Katsuya clamped his eyes closed and sank lower into his seat. He could feel the plastic cup of his seat straining and rippling beneath him, feel the individual hairs on the back of his neck start to rise, practically hear each bead of sweat form and roll down his neck." _I'm in my room_ ," he chanted, the words barely clicks of his tongue against his teeth and the sound of his lips brushing against one another. " _I'm in my room_. _People can't see me like this when I'm in my room. Nobody gets hurt when I am in my room. I'm in my room_."

"Mama, look!" The little girl said, hoisting up her umbrella and pointing with it.

Something cracked behind Katusya's ear. " _I'm in my room_. _People can't see me like this when I'm in my room. Nobody gets hurt when I am in my room. I'm in my room. I have a job now, I go to school. Nobody is staring at me. I'm in my room_."

"Oh," the girl's mother said.

" _I'm in my room_. _People can't see me like this when I'm in my room. I am in my room. I'm in my room_. _I'm in my_ _room. I'm in my-!_ "

The train slowed to a stop again, and the doors slid open with mechanical precision. Katsuya all but threw himself out of his seat and towards the hazy light outside once the first hint of it pierced its way into his car.

"There were two more empty seats!" The little girl's voice faded away as Katsuya scrambled out of the train and onto the platform, and then ultimately stumbled to his hands and knees as his feet gave way on the slick, wet tile.

A few of the people passing by gave him a curious glance from beneath the brim of their umbrellas, but otherwise entered and exited the train en masse like two distinct swarms of multicolored jellyfish caught in two separate currents. They drifted on in a parade of color until they disappeared.

Katsuya wheezed beneath the prodding fingers of the light rain accosting him from above, and cast a wary, widened eye over the station. This platform was above ground and out on the edge of Seasoning City, near where the mountains steadily rolled like waves until they settled out into a calm sea of farmland.

"Oh," Katsuya said, holding out his hands and catching the fine water droplets as they landed on his fingers. "I'm, ah." he swallowed, and then looked around once more. The platform was devoid of life, save the grass poking up around its edges. "I'm all alone. Oh." He rubbed at his arms and shivered.

Behind him, the doors of the train closed.

"W-wait," Katsuya said, struggling to his feet on shaky legs. "I-I think I need to get back on. Th-there aren't any connecting trains at this stop, so," he held out his hand, "So I need to get back on, right?"

The train pulled away without answer.

"Wait! W-wait, please!" Katsuya ran forward, and then tripped again into a puddle, his hand still out like a beggar reaching out for the ends of someone's cloak. "Please d-don't leave me!" His breath came in ragged bursts, and the tiles beneath him fractured one tiny line at a time, like Katsuya's whole self was supported by nothing more than eggshells. "Don't leave me here without an umbrella! _Don't!_ " The tiles split into deeper fissures, and the little shards that broke free lifted into the air to meet the oncoming rain. " _Don't-!_ "

"Don't worry," said another voice, this one calm and even. "Another train will come soon." Footfalls squished in the rain.

Katsuya flipped around and threw a hand over his face. "D-don't! Don't come near me! I-I-I'm dangerous!" spit flew out of his mouth, "I'm gonna-!"

"You can't hurt me," said the boy. "Even if you wanted to." Shigeo's deep eyes peeked out from beneath a bright pink umbrella dotted with white and yellow daisies. "Master said you might get lost on your way home."

Katsuya blinked. The white shards of tile fell around him like a fairy ring as Shigeo held something green out to him. "Wh-where did you come from?"

"There were a lot of people on the train." Shigeo's thousand-yard stare drew Katsuya in like black holes. "It wouldn't have been nice to step on their toes," he mused. "I followed you, but you didn't see me waving."

"Oh," said Katsuya. "S-sorry."

"It's okay. I don't stand out very much." Shigeo nudged the thing in his hands towards Katsuya. "Here."

Katsuya's shaking hands took it. It had a cartoon frog's head stuck on the top, whatever it was. "Uh, th-thanks."

Shigeo then offered him a hand, and pulled him up- with great effort. Another stare from the boy followed as Katsuya blinked down at the frog finial smiling back at him.

Shigeo stared harder.

"Um," said Katsuya.

"It's my favorite," Shigeo prompted, as if that meant something.

"Oh. Okay. Thank you," Katsuya tried.

Shigeo pointed to the green strap tied around its center- the same color green as the rest of it- and fastened with a pad of black velcro. "You can open it."

Katsuya jumped. "It's," he loosened the strap, "an umbrella?" He popped it open and held it aloft like the Holy Grail and not a child's accessory.

"Yup," Shigeo said. And then, again, "It's my favorite."

Katsuya gaped at it, and then erupted into a watery smile. "Thank you!" His cheeks turned the color of the fabric canopy above Shigeo's head.

"I'll let you use it when you really need it." His dark eyes slid over to capture Katsuya again. "But only when you really need it."

"Of- of course!" Katsuya said. "I'll take very good care of it!" The rain picked up and pattered around them both in a joyous tune. It soaked their shoes, but Katsuya smiled brightly above the water.

Eventually, Shigeo stood on his tiptoes and held the pink umbrella in his hands over the both of them.

"That's okay- this one is big enough to keep me dry," Katsuya said.

Shigeo held fast, and water pelted the shoulder of his black school uniform.

"Really, it's okay. You're getting wet now," Katsuya pointed out.

"Yup."

"Does, uh," Katsuya said, "Doesn't that bother you?"

Shigeo gave a meaningful look to the dry, smiling frog atop Katsuya's borrowed umbrella. "Nope."


End file.
